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CV NEWS FEED // Although St. Francis of Assisi is popularly credited with creating the first Nativity scene, the Church has been depicting versions of the birth of Christ since the third century.
According to the Smithsonian Magazine, one of the earliest depictions of a Nativity scene is a late third- or early fourth-century wall painting of the Adoration of the Magi in the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome. It shows an image of Our Lady holding the Child Jesus while the three wise men bring gifts.
The Adoration of the Magi is also depicted on a 4th-century marble sarcophagus at the cemetery of St. Agnes in Rome. In it, the three Wise Men each leads a camel, and the Star of Bethlehem appears above the Blessed Virgin, who is holding the Infant Jesus.
Throughout the fifth and sixth centuries, elaborate mosaics were created depicting the Adoration of the Magi. One such image is in the St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome.
By 1075, St. Mary Major Basilica was displaying Nativity scenes during Christmas Masses. That year, Pope Gregory VII celebrated Mass at the basilica while “a Nativity scene [had] been constructed near the main altar so that all [could] contemplate the event in salvation history being commemorated,” according to historian Maureen C. Miller’s book Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe, c. 800-1200.
Pope Gregory VII was kidnapped by armed men when celebrating this Christmas Mass.
St. Francis of Assisi is often credited with being the first person to create a live Nativity scene in 1233. In St. Bonaventure’s biography of St. Francis, he tells readers that St. Francis first asked the Pope’s permission “that this might not seem an innovation.”
The saint set up a manger full of hay in a cave, and had an ox and donkey lie near it. Apparently no humans were part of the arrangement, and Mass was said over the scene.
Of St. Francis, St. Bonaventure wrote, “The man of God, filled with tender love, stood before the manger, bathed in tears, and overflowing with joy.”
St. Francis “preached unto the folk standing round of the Birth of the King in poverty, calling Him, when he wished to name Him, the Child of Bethlehem, by reason of his tender love for Him.”
Then St. Bonaventure explains how a knight saw an apparition of the Child Jesus in the manger.
“A certain knight, valorous and true, Messer John of Greccio, who for the love of Christ had left the secular army, and was bound by closest friendship unto the man of God [St. Francis], declared that he beheld a little Child right fair to see sleeping in that manger. Who [the Child Jesus] seemed to be awakened from sleep when the blessed Father Francis embraced Him in both arms.”
St. Bonaventure thinks that this vision was credible because later, the hay from the manger miraculously healed livestock of various illnesses.
According to the Smithsonian, by the late 1400s, the artists Pietro and Giovanni Alamanno created life-sized Nativity figures covered in gold leaf.
Another Catholic saint, St. Cajetan of Thiene, was responsible for an innovation in Nativity scenes. He designed a Nativity with figures dressed like contemporary Neopolitans, inspiring the tradition of the “presepio,” which is Italian for crib.
These presepi are huge panoramas depicting the birth of Christ taking place in a Neapolitan scene and gained much popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries, according to the Carnegie Museum of Art.
In the 1700s, many Protestant denominations rejected Nativity scenes, deeming them as idolatrous, according to the Smithsonian. However, the Czech Moravian Christians who settled in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, continued the tradition when they came to the United States in the 1800s.
To this day, Pennsylvania’s Bethlehem is famed for its Christkindlmart, which is a Christmas market that began in Germany and other German-speaking European countries.
The Outdoor Nativity Store states that as Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Poland, Italy, and Germany came to the United States in the 19th century, Nativity scenes became more mainstream in American culture.
By the 20th century, Nativity scenes in public places became commonplace in the United States. However, some have taken issue with these displays, even though they are protected under the First Amendment.
In 2014, the Thomas More Society ensured that the state capitols of Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Rhode Island, Texas, Michigan, and Nebraska were permitted to display Nativity scenes.
December 2024 marked the first time a Nativity scene was displayed at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., as CatholicVote previously reported.
